Bonding Potential
by SETI-fan
Summary: When you don't have much experience with friendship, it's very easy to read more into basic kindness than intended. (The early days of Abby and Holtzmann's friendship.)


**I'll just apologize in advance. I'm a biologist, not an engineer or physicist. For the technobabble, I tried to put together words and concepts I knew in a vaguely plausible way, but if they make no sense or are far simpler than somebody at Abby and Holtzmann's level would be working on, I apologize. Hope it doesn't take away from the story.**

* * *

Abby and Holtzmann couldn't have been a much odder pair. It wasn't so much that they were mismatched, just that each was so fundamentally odd in her own way that existing together had an additive effect, amplifying their weird-waves off the charts. Well, as they say, when you find someone whose weirdness is compatible with your own…

Abby had thought she had found that with Erin. Someone else with an interest in the unknown, who had actually seen a ghost no less! For years they had chased the paranormal together, united against the ridicule of the world. Abby had thought her belief and support would be enough to get them through, but ultimately the opinions of others meant more and Erin had bailed on their work and their friendship.

Their falling out was hard on Abby. Finding out the only place willing to hire her to continue her work, despite her PhD, was a rundown, crime-ridden school had been an extra kick. She had settled into the roach-infested lab room, driving herself forward on spite and stubbornness as she had through every bit of adversity since entering school as a chubby, geeky girl with an interest in ghost stories. Those early months at the Higgins Institute had been a blur of anger, frustration, and bitterness, until the day Jillian Holtzmann exploded into her life.

Literally. Of course it had been literally.

Abby had been walking home from the store when she heard and felt the concussion blast. Seeing the trail of smoke rising from a nearby storage facility, she immediately dropped her bags and ran to help.

The smell of ozone and welding smoke hung in the air. "Hello?" Abby called, picking her way up to the ruins of the storage unit. She could feel her hair rising with residual electricity. "Anyone hurt?"

A pile of rubble and metal against a wall shifted and Abby realized someone was behind it. "Oh god. Hold on, I'm coming." She lifted a sheet of twisted metal away. "It's okay. I'm an engineer."

"Really? Me too." The soot-covered figure coughed, pushing itself to its feet.

"I don't think you should move. You might be hurt," Abby protested.

"Eh, just an overly energetic fusion reaction," the figure, which Abby now realized was a woman, said dismissively, peeling off blackened goggles so she could see. The woman peered at the ruins of whatever had been in the middle of the unit through the clean mask of skin around her eyes. "Not the worst detonation I've caused by far."

Fusion. A slight chill went down Abby's spine. That was nuclear. "Were you making a bomb?" she breathed reflexively, startled.

"Not originally, though I guess that's what it decided to be." The woman casually brushed some glowing embers out of her hair. "It was supposed to be a moped."

"Oh." Abby relaxed slightly, reasonably convinced this person wasn't a terrorist. "A nuclear moped?"

"It was worth a shot," she said, though Abby wasn't sure why it would be. The woman turned to Abby, voice still casually slow and cheerful. "Really appreciate the save, but I strongly recommend we, uh, maybe move ourselves out of the immediate area. Maybe down the road a little bit, away from the fallout radiation…"

Abby was suddenly profoundly aware of the lack of safety equipment she was wearing. Not that the other woman had more than goggles on either… "Yeah. Is anybody else in the—?"

"No, no, nobody else," the woman waved a fluttery hand toward the wreckage as she clambered out to the sidewalk. "And probably nothing salvageable until everything…cools down a bit."

Abby followed her back out to the street, wondering how much she had been exposed to in the last few minutes. At least the other woman didn't seem to be glowing…

"So, why were you working on a nuclear moped in a storage unit?"

"Not a lot of labs eager to let me work there since the incident at CERN."

 _CERN?!_ "Wait, you worked for CERN?"

"Almost."

"What happened?"

The woman looked back at the smoldering wreckage. "Well, uh, an even more exergonic variation on that."

"Oh," Abby said.

"And put a guy in a coma."

"Oh!" Abby's eyebrows pulled together in a wince.

"I had this incredible light bulb moment for how to increase the cycle velocity on my superconducting magnet array without upping the friction beyond my windings' tolerance. But apparently the capacitors they had to work with weren't graded for that level of discharge and…" she laughed, ruefully deep. "Well, I don't have to tell you what happened next."

While Abby wasn't one hundred percent certain she'd followed the details of her set up, she knew enough to have a pretty ugly visual of the aftermath. "Yikes."

"Yep," the woman agreed in a somewhat comedically pinched voice.

"Shame you couldn't have known and built in a quenching system with maybe fluorine foam or something?"

The woman's blue eyes snapped to Abby's, truly focusing on her for the first time. The intensity transfixed Abby, entranced by the sudden interest and curiosity in them. "You're an engineer," the woman said, repeating Abby's words with new appreciation.

"I am, yeah," Abby nodded, slightly intimidated.

"A _nuclear_ engineer," she emphasized, turning to face Abby fully as she sized her up and down.

"Well, a bit, but nothing on the level you're talking about!" Abby laughed.

The woman held out a soot-covered hand, eyes never leaving Abby's. "Holtzmann, Doctor. Holtzy if you're nasty," she added with a grin and wink that should have been unnerving, but instead were strangely charming.

"Abby Yates, also Doctor."

"Where are you based, Dr. Abby Yates?" Dr. Holtzmann asked, still grinning as she shook Abby's hand.

"The, ahem, Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science," she answered, trying to carry herself as if it were a more reputable institution.

"I've never heard of it," Holtzmann said, not patronizingly, just stating fact.

"Well, we're a growing department," Abby offered lamely.

"Physics or engineering?" Holtzmann asked, letting go of Abby's hand, but still holding her with her eyes and smile.

"A little of each. Kind of a hybrid department." Abby had never let anyone make her feel stupid or weird in her life. No one else's opinion mattered more to her than what she knew to be true. And yet, standing before an almost-CERN-approved nuclear engineer, albeit one who currently looked like an overcooked hotdog, the setbacks of the last few years loomed heavy in her mind. "Paranormal Studies."

If Dr. Holtzmann's gaze was intense before, it was a laser now. The grin took on a different, brighter energy. "Paranormal? Alien encounters? Bigfoot living among us?"

Abby braced for the mockery. "Ghosts, actually, are my specialty."

"Of course," Holtzmann replied easily. "I can think of at least five principles of quantum mechanics that could allow for extracorporeal manifestation and that's without even getting into dimensional portals or temporal loops."

Abby looked up, surprised. "You've thought about science of the paranormal?"

Holtzmann shrugged, snorting. "Who hasn't? Besides, I love anything that's para to the normal."

Abby just stared at her for a minute as Holtzmann began brushing soot off her clothes, checking that a large pendant on a chain around her neck was intact. The last time Abby had felt the same little thrill of a kindred spirit was with Erin and look how that had turned out. She really shouldn't be considering this. Pulling someone from the wreckage of their last experiment had to be the worst job interview ever.

And yet…she was brilliant enough to be considered by CERN. She was versed in nuclear engineering and apparently creative applications for it. Not only had she been unfazed by Abby mentioning her ghost research, she had her own ideas she could bring to the project. An extra set of hands around the lab would definitely be welcome. And, though Abby hated to admit it, the work really wasn't as much fun alone.

"So, uh, where _are_ you working now?"

"I am between ventures at the moment," Holtzmann said slowly.

"Yeah? Well, I know it's a pretty big step down from CERN, but my department is profoundly understaffed and if you're willing, I could use some fresh eyes on the work I'm doing."

Holtzmann looked over, intrigued. "Are you offering me a job, Dr. Abby Yates?"

As if on cue, something fell over in the wreckage of the storage unit.

"Well, ultimately the Dean would have to hire you, but I'm pretty sure he was high when he hired me and I haven't seen him sober since, so I think he'll love you."

"Outstanding," Holtzmann still smiled, a charred Cheshire cat.

Well, if that didn't put her off… "The facility's pretty old and the pay's worse than a grad student's, but I have the freedom to do what I want and if it works we'll be breaking new boundaries in our understanding of the physical world."

"You make a compelling offer, Dr. Yates," Holtzmann said, pulling out a surprisingly unbroken pair of yellow-lensed glasses to put on. "I would be very interested to see your work."

"Great!" Abby looked at the smoldering mess. "You, uh, have somewhere to stay for the night? You weren't…living in there, were you?"

"Oh, no, I have a place. I'd love to show you, but both of us need to stay here for right now."

Abby blinked, a bit thrown. "To make sure no one goes near the wreckage?"

"That too, but mostly because we're definitely going to be talking to police before the night's over," Holtzmann said calmly.

Cold went through Abby's stomach as red and blue lights began to reflect off the walls around them. She and Erin had run to avoid trespassing charges plenty of times in their youth, but something like this? And the radiation signature from the explosion was all over her too. They were going to think she was an accomplice! And she'd just offered the woman a job so she couldn't even back up her claim she wasn't involved!

But Holtzmann seemed unconcerned by the whole situation, watching the fire engine pull up with her hands in her pockets. A fire marshal's pickup truck parked beside it. The grizzled man inside opened the door and got out, leaning on it with a weary expression.

"Dr. Holtzmann."

"Jeff!" Holtzmann greeted cheerfully. "I don't suppose you thought to bring a decontamination shower with you this time?"

Abby looked at the grinning woman beside her, wondering what she had just gotten herself into.

OOO

Abby supposed there were weirder ways of making friends than spending a night filling out police reports together, but not many sprang to mind.

It turned out that while the government agreed Holtzmann needed to be on some kind of watchlist, she wasn't considered an intentional threat and they were more interested in seeing what she would invent than in locking her away. So long as there were no more casualties and she paid any property damages, she was allowed to carry on.

Holtzmann didn't even seem bothered as she arranged payment with the furious owner of the storage facility. Apparently she'd had some profitable patents that kept her going while unemployed, although she was rapidly burning through those reserves to cover the materials and damages of her ongoing experiments. A new job couldn't come too soon.

From the first time Holtzmann came in the next morning to see the lab, she and Abby hit it off. Admittedly, Abby almost hadn't recognized her when she showed up, given she had only previously seen her wearing the aftereffects of her explosion. With her blonde hair done up in elaborately disheveled curls, an oversized jacket, barely matching layered clothes, a large bag, and, for some reason, a large boombox, Abby thought a student had actually turned up for office hour for the first time in history. But then she saw the yellow-tinted glasses and wicked grin and knew.

Holtzmann—Jillian, but just Holtzmann, she learned—took to her field immediately. Within minutes she had her pack open to reveal a variety of tools and was modifying one of Abby's sensors to enhance its range while making a valiant effort at hitting the high notes in "Take On Me".

Abby and the Higgins institute did indeed take her on and life gained new color again. Bringing Holtzmann into her work was like getting a new puppy after your old dog passed away. Your regular routine was going to be completely upended, some of your stuff was probably going to get destroyed, but the energy and joy she brought with her was infectious and helped heal some of the hole in Abby's heart.

Together they filled the once-dismal lab with music, laughter, the smell of greasy takeout, and an engineer's Toyland of gadgets and tools. They spent late nights alternating between getting absorbed in their work, sharing drinks until they were giggling, overtired messes, or breaking into impromptu horrible dancing or prank wars. When they did stakeouts of claimed haunted spots, Holtzmann could alternate between wielding the equipment with deft precision or using the sounds of the different frequencies to make rude noises at the tensest moments.

Overall, Holtzmann was just completely, unabashedly herself and that attitude influenced their whole operation. Abby had never felt quite as free to run full speed ahead with ideas and theories. Whereas Erin could never fully get past worrying about others' comments on their work, Holtzmann seemed to revel in being called strange, beaming as if it was a compliment or simply acknowledging it as a fundamental truth of her world. Everything about the oddness of their lives and the characters they worked with seemed to entertain her, like life was one fascinating, massive experiment and she was observing the variables' interactions with amusement, as pleased with an explosion as an intended result. It was a personality Abby realized she really needed in her life right now.

So Abby continued to be surprised when one day Holtzmann packed up early in the afternoon.

"You going out? I thought we were going to order pizza and redo those circuitboards we were talking about. I bought some rainbow-colored solders…"

"You are a cruel temptress, Abby, and normally I'd be all over that, but can't today. Gotta pick up some flowers."

"Flowers? You got a date, Holtzy?"

"No, no. Anniversary."

Working with Holtzmann meant constantly reevaluating her understanding of the woman, but that was a bigger jump than usual. "Wait…you're married?"

Holtzmann laughed, but not quite as freely as usual. "No, not like that. Coma guy."

Oh. _Oh_. That kind of anniversary. "Gotcha. Want me to go with you?"

Holtzmann's eyebrows shot up like she'd never considered that as an option. She shrugged. "It's not a fun trip, but sure, if you want."

It was curiosity as much as anything that made Abby follow her on the errand. Although they had now worked together closely for enough months Abby had lost count, she knew very little about Holtzmann's past. For someone who gave off an air of having nothing to hide, she actually didn't reveal much personal detail. Besides, there was a slightly subdued feeling behind Holtz's cheer that made Abby want to be there for her.

To her surprise, Holtzmann didn't just hit a Duane Reade, going instead to an actual florist and picking up a decent-sized bouquet, if a bit of an odd mix of color choices. Abby didn't know flowers even came in radioactive green…

They took a cab to the hospital, Holtzmann still chatting normally, but her hands fidgeted endlessly with the flowers' wrapping.

As they walked into the hospital, Holtzmann's nervous tics disappeared into her more familiar easy grins and humor, making Abby wonder if the woman did have her own brand of concern about how she appeared to others.

They exited the elevator, Holtzmann leading unerringly to the wing of the hospital she needed. A nurse looked up from the duty station and smiled warmly.

"Thought we'd see you today. His family went down for lunch a little while ago, so feel free to head in."

"Thanks." Holtz pulled one flower out of the bouquet and handed it to the nurse with a wink.

Abby mentally rolled her eyes. Of course Holtzmann would charm the ladies wherever they went.

Holtzmann started walking forward, then paused, turning back. "Abby, I'm glad to introduce you to him, but if it's not a problem, this part's kind of easier _mano a mano_."

Abby waved her off. "You go ahead. I'm just here for moral support."

Holtzmann looked a bit surprised at that, but saluted and headed down the short hall to a room where Abby could see a man lying motionless in bed with numerous monitors and tubes. Holtzmann threw her arms wide in greeting as she walked in.

"We have chairs if you'd like one while you wait," the nurse offered.

"Oh, I'm okay, thanks," Abby said.

"So you're her…?" the nurse asked, propping her flower in a pencil holder.

"Friend. And coworker," Abby answered absently, watching Holtzmann check out the monitors.

The nurse made an odd little pleased sound. "Well, you're the first person she's brought with her, so it's good to know she has people."

Abby wanted to ask how often Holtz came by to see the man. Instead she just said, "So if he was injured at CERN, what's he doing in New York?"

"His family's here so when it became clear this was going to last a while they moved him closer to home."

Abby nodded, wondering if that was why Holtzmann settled in New York too. "Thanks," she said, moving down the hall to linger near the room.

She couldn't hear what Holtzmann was saying, but could see the profile of her face sometimes and caught her pulling exaggerated expressions and making wild gestures as if he could see her. She noticed one move that reminded her of the PKE sensor they were working on and wondered if Holtz was updating the unconscious man on her work.

After a few moments, her story sobered and Holtzmann stood awkwardly by his bed, hands in her pockets. Whatever she said now was quieter, her head lowered. Abby almost felt like a voyeur even seeing this much and considered walking back to the duty station when the nurse appeared at her side.

"Dr. Holtzmann? His family's headed back up."

Holtzmann looked back, nodding. "Thanks." She said one or two last things to the comatose man, gave him a very gentle punch on the arm, then walked out to rejoin Abby.

"He really is improving," the nurse said kindly. "It's a slow process, but we all have high hopes for him."

Holtzmann nodded, not meeting either of their eyes. Clearing her throat, she dug into a pocket of her overalls, producing a handful of crumpled money. "The new gig I'm working doesn't pay as much as my old one, but whatever you can do with this."

The nurse smiled as she accepted the dollars and, apparently, some coins, again looking like this was nothing new to her. "We'll apply it to his bill."

Holtz nodded again, patting blindly at Abby's arm as she started down the hallway. "Come on. Best his family and I don't see each other."

A host of emotions swirling through her mind, Abby glanced back at the unconscious man, then the nurse returning to her station, before hurrying to catch up with her friend.

Holtzmann was uncharacteristically quiet on the cab ride back, leaning against the cool window, watching the buildings go by.

"Were you close to him?" Abby finally ventured.

"Nah. Didn't meet him till that day. Never talked."

"But you visit him a lot?"

Holtzmann glanced over to toss her a little grin that felt more put-on than natural. "Well, I did put him there."

"It was an accident," Abby said, kindly but firmly.

"An avoidable one." Holtzmann was looking out the window again. "I was so excited with my project, I could see how it all needed to go together, so I was in a building rush, like we do. And I neglected to check the tolerances on some of the equipment I got there because I was used to what I had at home. Didn't test it before demonstrating it for a group. Because when I'm inventing I get so focused on the end goal that I don't accommodate for any outcome but success."

The way she said that last sentence Abby was sure she was repeating something she'd been told or overheard. Apparently even Holtzmann was susceptible to what others thought of her. She just didn't stop. Or couldn't.

"So what was it?" Abby asked to lighten the mood. "The invention you were so excited about?"

"Oh, I was working on a containment field to be able to hold electrons in place even while being observed."

Jesus. Nothing like setting attainable goals. "Would it have worked?"

Holtzmann wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "About 97% certain it would. Of course, that 3% is all _catastrophic_ failure."

"Huh." Abby shook her head, whistling softly. "Leave it to you to try to defy the Heisenberg uncertainty principle."

"It's always annoyed me." Holtzmann scratched her neck as she watched the buildings pass again. "To know something's there but you can never actually see it? If I could just trap one of the little buggers and be able to say, 'Ha! Saw you!', even if it only worked once?" She shrugged.

Abby huffed ruefully. "Well, I know how that feels."

She looked over at Holtzmann, who was rubbing her fingers together in a fidgety way, and thought about losing a shot at CERN and about the man lying in the hospital and the ever-growing array of projects in their lab, always building and designing but still taking time to make Abby laugh too.

And on a whim, she reached over and gave Holtzmann a side hug.

Holtz froze in her arms. They didn't do a lot of physical contact outside of high fives, and when they did it was usually Holtzmann initiating it. But it felt right and Abby thought she needed it.

"You're a good person, Holtz," she said before releasing her and leaning back slightly to look into her surprised eyes. "And scientists like us? We're operating at the edge of the unknown. So yeah, sometimes we're gonna leap with only preliminary data because how else are you gonna be sure you can fly? Not from a review board or grant committee saying, 'Oh, it's impossible to see an electron' or 'Ghosts aren't real'. Did Barry Marshall let it stop him from proving bacteria cause ulcers when they said he couldn't test his hypothesis on humans? No! He drank the bacteria broth himself and vomited his way to a Nobel Prize!"

"Thanks, Abby," Holtzmann said as Abby sat back.

"You're welcome. And hey, one day when we have more funding and you finally get to build it right, maybe you can name it after Coma Guy."

Holtzmann looked thoughtful. "The Coma Guy containment field. Sounds sexy."

"Well, not what I was thinking, but go for it."

The rest of the ride back to the lab felt much lighter and while they were working that afternoon, Holtzmann got her to listen to an EVP that turned out to be "Never Gonna Give You Up", so everything felt back to normal.

OOO

As time went on, Abby realized they weren't being assigned classes to teach anymore, but the paychecks kept coming, so they assumed the Institute wanted them to focus more on their research without distractions.

When Holtzmann's patent money ran out, Abby was glad to see that despite her prestigious academic pedigree, Holtz embraced dumpster diving without blinking. The pair spent many days and nights perusing alleys and junkyards like a couple of teens at the mall. She was sure she even saw Holtzmann with a soft pretzel one time, but didn't really want to ask where she got it.

After one such trip, they came back to the lab stinking of garbage, but giddy with the success of their hunt. They joked and rambled about their plans as they put the new acquisitions away and started cleaning up the lab for the night.

"Hey Abby?" Holtzmann said. "Once we're cleaned up, would you like to go out for dinner tonight?"

"I think I'm gonna need, like, three showers to get this smell off," Abby snorted, winding some cords up to put away. "Want to just order something in here?"

"Actually, I really would like to go out. With you."

Something about that made Abby pause. She looked over and saw Holtzmann leaning against a nearby table, eyes slightly narrowed, lips curved in that grin filled with charm and promises.

Oh.

Oh no.

"Oh, sweetie, I—uh—"

She hadn't even said 'no' yet, but she saw the expression already fall from Holtzmann's face, replaced with embarrassment before she looked away, her body language closing up abruptly.

"Holtz, it's not that. I just…"

"No, hey, it's nothing," Holtzmann said, flashing a fake grin at Abby without actually looking at her as she headed around the table to get her bag. "My bad. Bad joke."

"Holtz…" Abby tried, pained.

"You, um, go ahead and do what you want for dinner, order, whatever," Holtzmann stumbled, making a beeline for the door. "I'm just gonna…go."

"Holtz, wait!" But she was already gone. "Shit…" Abby hissed, running her hand over her tied-back hair.

Of course she knew Holtzmann liked women. How could you not? She'd even seen her leaving the bar with a few when they'd gone out after work sometimes. But that was it. She flirted with everybody. It was just a tease, just fun, right?

Except there had been no joke in her voice tonight. Oh, shit…

Had she been genuinely flirting the whole time they'd known each other? Abby knew she was a bit oblivious to things like that, focused mostly on their mission, but what had she missed? Had she accidentally been leading Holtzmann on this whole time? Damn it…

Abby couldn't really care about winding up the rest of the cords. She just gathered up her belongings and turned out the lights, hoping to go home, clean off the lingering smell of trash, and figure out what to do about this before seeing Holtzmann again tomorrow.

OOO

The bath did little to calm her clenching stomach and her worrying brain didn't let her sleep well. She wondered if Holtz would avoid her and not show up the next day, or if she would be there trying to pretend like nothing happened and just want to have everything go back to normal. She hoped it was the latter, but knew now that the topic had been broached, nothing would be exactly the same again. Holtzmann liked her romantically. Abby didn't—couldn't—feel the same way back. How long could their partnership last with that new knowledge hanging between them?

The next morning Abby walked down the dingy staircase to their lab, dread churning through her. She took a deep breath as she reached for the handle of the door. She had never run from anything in her life, not bullies nor the possibility of ghosts, but the thought of that little blonde woman looking at her with hurt in her eyes was enough to make her want to turn around and go home.

Instead, Abby sucked it up and cautiously entered the room. Then stopped as she saw she was alone. Apparently Holtz was taking the avoidance route. Okay, that bought her time to figure out how to come up with a better solution—but her relief drained away as she realized something was deeply wrong and her stomach went cold.

Holtzmann's side of the lab was unusually empty, her tools and works in progress no longer strewn across the metal tables. Her stash of vending machine snacks had been emptied from the basket by the fridge and even her boombox was missing from its place of honor. Holtzmann hadn't just chosen not to come in today. She was gone.

Regret and pain welled up in Abby's chest. She hadn't thought Holtz would leave that abruptly, without even saying goodbye or giving her a chance to explain better. After everything they'd done together for almost a year, she hadn't thought their friendship would end just like that, with Holtzmann vanishing out of her life overnight like the apparitions people reported.

But she'd left. Disappeared. And it was over.

Just like with Erin.

Abby clamped down on the emotions that threatened to break loose, wounds long buried under scars of anger. No. She wasn't doing that again. Maybe Holtzmann had left a letter of resignation and the dean knew where she had gone. Maybe there was still a chance she could catch her before she evaporated as mysteriously as she had appeared months ago.

Abby hurried down the hall, mind on a mission to find her friend, ready to barge into the dean's office no matter if he was in a meeting or giving a bribe to an inspector, when an odd detail made her stop, puzzled. She turned and looked back at the door she had just passed. As long as she could remember working there, that room had been locked and dark. Nobody knew what key opened it and even if they did, most agreed it was a bad idea to go in. The computer they could glimpse from the window in the door had a dot-matrix printer hooked up to it and there was a pervading odor of sour milk around the area.

But today it was lit up, the door propped slightly open—possibly to vent the smell—and the lock looked like someone had taken an oxyfuel torch to it.

Abby swallowed and walked up, hopeful and afraid of what she would see inside.

Sure enough, Holtzmann was arranging half-constructed contraptions on a table surface gray with dust thick enough to dig trenches in.

She hadn't left. Abby felt her knees shake a bit with relief or fear.

Holtzmann noticed her and froze, swallowing visibly though her face settled into a neutral expression. "Dr. Yates."

Ouch. But she couldn't back out now. She had to say her piece. "Holtzmann. You, uh, moving over here?"

"Yeah, I, um, thought some space might be good after, uh, last night."

Abby nodded carefully. "Ah. I, um, wanted to talk to you about that."

Holtzmann shook her head, moving back to her work. "No need. I'm sorry for crossing a boundary in our friendship. I misread your kindness and I apologize for putting you in an uncomfortable position."

"Wait." Abby blinked, shaking her head slightly. "You left because you thought _I_ was uncomfortable?"

Holtzmann cocked her head back at Abby. "Yesssss?"

"I thought you left because _you_ were uncomfortable around _me_."

"You're not freaked out that I came onto you?" Holtzmann asked, brow furrowing.

"No! I mean, I feel bad because I can't return the feelings, but it's not because of you. I just…don't feel that way about girls." She wasn't sure she'd felt that way about anybody, to be honest, but now wasn't the time to dive into that. "But I didn't want you to leave over it! You think I'd end a great friendship over something like that?"

Holtzmann looked down at her PKE meter prototype, mumbling something. Abby couldn't make out most of it, but her attention focused when she caught the word "Erin".

"Hey, Erin left me!" she snapped, a bit more heated than she intended. "She didn't even have the guts to tell me to my face, just ditched me and stopped answering my calls. If she'd told me what was going on, I would've backed her up! Always!"

A voice in the back of her mind wondered if she was being honest with herself. She'd known about Erin's insecurities over how others viewed their work, but thought she could power through it with her own confidence, that Erin would be fine because they had each other. And she'd blazed forward with their work, focused entirely on the goal without taking time to consider if she was pushing Erin past her tolerances, and now their friendship had even less hope of recovery than Holtzmann's Coma Guy.

She shut that train of thought down. Right now her relationship with Holtzmann was at risk of becoming next.

"Look, I swear, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm not mad or upset. And if I did anything to lead you on—"

"No, you didn't. You just were kind and fun and a wonderful person."

Abby felt a bittersweet pang in her heart as Holtz fiddled with some wires rather than look at her.

"Holtzmann…" It felt too formal, using her last name at a time like this, but she knew calling her Jillian would be the more awkward choice of the two. What authority figures called her versus what her peers called her. And Abby very much wanted to still be in that latter category. She stepped closer. "Holtz, I'm sorry I can't be your girlfriend. But I loved being your best friend."

Holtzmann looked up out of the corner of her eye now. "Yeah?"

"Hell yeah! I mean, you're one of the coolest people I've ever met. If I was interested in girls, I would be so lucky that you wanted to date me! Seriously, how many dates can design proton lasers _and_ discuss the history of poltergeist activity by continent? It's not many, I can tell you that. And hey, if you do want to find somebody who can give you everything you deserve that way, it'd be my honor to be your wingman—woman—whatever."

She stopped herself, realizing she was jumping ahead on the assumption things were fixed between them. "I mean, if you wanted me to."

Holtzmann stared down at the device on the table, tapping her fingers rapidly on the dusty surface in what Abby recognized as a way she vented nervous energy or emotion. She waited, wishing she could just demand an answer, but gave Holtz her time to work through what she wanted to say.

"Can I be Maverick? I mean I don't want to force you to be Goose. There's always Iceman if you'd rather—"

"Goose is great, that sounds perfectly fair," Abby interrupted, pure relief flooding through her. She held out a hand. "So, still friends?"

Holtz ignored her hand completely and threw her arms around Abby's neck, holding tight in one of the warmest hugs Abby had had in years. She wrapped her arms around Holtzmann in return, thanking whatever forces were out there that this time she'd gotten to work things out.

"All right," she said as Holtzmann finally started loosening her grip and stepped back. "We've got ghosts to find. What do you say I help you bring this stuff back into the lab?"

Holtzmann slumped visibly. "That'd be great. This was a huge pain to move over here all morning. Note from experience now: don't try to carry three uranium containers at the same time."

"I promise not to try that. Come on," she said starting to load equipment back onto a handcart, "let's get out of this place. Smells like someone tried to make cheese out of really bad wine."

"Actually, I think we should do some analysis on this room," Holtzmann said, carefully disconnecting what appeared to be jumper cables. "I found some specimen jars in a cabinet back there filled with something that might once have been human."

"Oh god." Abby wrinkled her nose, then grinned. "How amazing would that be?! Right down the hall this whole time? You can't convince me nobody's ever died in this building. Come on, let's charge up the sensors, we'll set up in the back corner there, and…"

As they settled back into their now-familiar rhythm, Abby vowed to cherish this friendship and make it last as long as she could, the last ghosts of the past fading away as the future looked brighter than ever.

* * *

 **P.S. - Barry Marshall is a real person and one of my favorite examples of the lengths research scientists will go to to prove their ideas.  
**


End file.
